As many women will no doubt attest, not all fat accrues equally. That may be because cells in your thighs and abdomen store fat in different ways, the New Scientist's Debora MacKenzie reports.
Michael Jensen and colleagues at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, put volunteers on a fattening diet for eight weeks and then measured what happened to their fat cells, or adipocytes.
While abdominal cells got larger, thigh cells multiplied, by recruiting more adipocytes from pre-fat cells.
The more new thigh fat cells recruited, the less abdominal fat people gained. Fat on the abdomen increases the risk of diabetes and other disorders, while fat on hips and thighs has a protective effect.
Jensen thinks thigh fat may soak up excess food energy to keep it away from the abdomen, where fat does more damage.
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An individual's tendency to be pear or apple-shaped may in part be set by the ability of their thigh fat cells to recruit more adipocytes.
Learning what controls this process may help fight fat's detrimental effects on our health.
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1005259107
